Recently, with cost reduction and higher resolution of liquid crystal panels, graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are becoming popular. The use of the GUI which has been used only in personal computers with high performances is spreading among remote control apparatuses for production facilities. The use of the GUI enables to suppress an increase in the number of operation switches which is originated from enhancement of the performance of a remote control apparatus for production facilities. In addition, a user can intuitively input instructions via the GUI.
However, in designing a remote control apparatus having a GUI, a programmer may need to design objects, such as images and icons, to be displayed on the screen, associate a displayed object with information on an apparatus or the like, and set the display contents of the screen for an input from the user. This makes the development cost for a remote control apparatus with a GUI significantly larger than that for a conventional remote control apparatus which is not equipped with a GUI.
Some GUI applications change screens to provide information effective to a user on a narrow screen. Occasionally, when the amount and the types of data, which are shared by different screens of the GUI, increases the process contents of the application becomes complicated, making it difficult to create the application itself.
Accordingly, various techniques which enable easy construction of GUIs have been proposed (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).